Farming for Dummies
by gimmeabreakxD
Summary: In which Jack inherits a farm and does things with it.
1. Humble Beginnings

The farm looked nothing like the one he kept in his memories. It reeked of neglect, left to shrivel up and die. Dust everywhere. The soil was hard and closely packed, the barns in need of repair, the farmhouse itself falling apart, the nails rusted over. The air was still and quiet. It was death's robe unfurling, decay in motion, stagnation at their heels.

So much was missing—the chickens pecking away near the coop, the rank odor of horse sweat, the noisy mooing of cows and bleating of sheep. All the little things that cinched at this childhood and anchored it to the ground.

Not to mention that it was now in Technicolor, not in sepia. And the background music was different; somehow it rolled out a distinct hue of sadness. Nothing at all like the nostalgic music-box melody of the past years, and if he closed his eyes he could even hear the child singing "Na na na, na na na na, na na na…"

Jack frowned, opened his eyes, and shook his head. He realized that the flashback he was thinking of was the opening sequence of Back to Nature. Oops, he thought. Wrong game.

"Hey!" a fat-mayor-in-red-sounding voice said. A fat-mayor-in-red-looking man huffed and puffed his way over to where Jack stood. The name on his portrait showed six question marks. The man himself projected the illusion of being a human ball: his forehead was rounded, his cheeks protuberant, his nose bulbous, and his chin weak—it was so that his entire head was almost a full circle; every feature of his face had roundness in some form or another. He coughed into his fist and said, "The owner of this farm died a while back. You can't just go waltzing in here!"

Ever obedient, Jack stopped waltzing and straightened his slouch. "Sorry," he said. "About the owner…"

"He died." The man took off his glasses and wiped it on his shirt. He put it back on. "A while back."

"Oh." Jack's face fell.

"What the hell!" the man yelled, hopping away, his hat tipping. "Your face just fell! Pick it up, you ruffian! Good, now put it back on." He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Kids these days."

"Sorry," Jack said again. "Happens a lot these days. Anyway, how did the owner die?"

"Er…" The man seemed to mumble something that sounded like, _name in the Death Note_.

"Uh, sorry, I didn't seem to catch that…"

"Well, uh—he died of—of—yes, he died of old age."

"But he was only—"

"Old age!" The man took a step back. "Anyway, that's about it. He left the farm to someone named Jack."

Jack's eyebrows rose—what a coincidence, he thought. "Cool. My name's Jack, too."

Six-Question-Marks's face brightened. He grinned, showing his straight teeth, his cheeks bulging out. He said: "Really? Then that means you're the new owner of this farm."

"W-wait a minute. What if I'm just another guy named Jack?"

"Simple. What's your name?"

"Jack."

"And the one in his will?"

"Jack."

"See? Even if you're just another guy named Jack, it's your name on the will, so that means it's official: you are now the new owner of this farm."

The logic of it bothered Jack so much that his face almost fell again. How could anyone even think like that? It was inhuman. Animalistic. It was wonderfully brilliant, a genius of unspoken caliber. "Okay," he said. "I'll take it."

The man clapped his hands once. "Great! From now on, this farm is yours. It won't be easy, but if you try hard you can do a job to make him proud."

Jack nodded, and the man nodded, too. No one spoke for length of time. He couldn't find anything appropriate to say, so Jack nodded again, and the man reciprocated. They stood nodding in silence for a while before Jack started shaking his head. The man shook his head, too. Soon they started clucking their tongues in dismay.

"Unfortunate."

"Very."

"How awful."

"Breaks my heart."

"What were we talking about again?" Jack said.

This seemed to catch the man off guard, as he spoke while shaking his head. "Not the weather? Oh, yes, the farm."

"Of course. The farm." Jack nodded sagely, and the man nodded with him.

"The will."

"Yes."

All the nodding and the shaking of heads started getting to both men. Jack asked, "Anyway, how do you pronounce your name?"

"My name?" the man asked, bewildered. "Why, it's Thomas. Tho-mas. Simple as that."

Jack shook his head in confusion, and Thomas shook his head, too. "Wait, wait. So your name isn't Six-Question-Marks?"

"Heavens, no. Why would anyone have a name like that?"

"Oh, that makes sense now. You better check your portrait name once in a while. You appear as Six-Question-Marks to strangers."

Thomas nodded, and Jack did the same. "Will do. Thank you, Jack."

Jack waved at Thomas' retreating figure. He surveyed the farm, taking in the damage time had wrought, all the while calculating the expenses required to jumpstart the place and keep it up and running. He went in the little farmhouse and collected the old tools. Once outside, he started working—he hacked away at rocks, brought down the hoe against tree stumps, swung the sickle round and round until the world spun faster than normal. He was profusely sweating by the time he got halfway through the fields; dust and grime gathered underneath his fingernails, dark crescents lining the tips. The neckerchief he wore stuck to his nape. He turned back to survey his work, and saw right away that nothing had changed.

Jack shook his head. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

* * *

**Farming for Dummies**

_Humble Beginnings_

* * *

The surface of the pond rippled and shifted, shimmering like silk, stabbing at his eyes where the sun struck it; it sang of such wholesomeness and utter purity that he was almost afraid of dipping his fingers in it—it might have been an untainted remnant of Eden for all he knew.

A miniature rainbow curved at the base of the small waterfall. It _was _Eden, he thought, whittled away to the last crystal bone, the last piece of paradise on earth.

The water lapped at the slope of the pond, and at once he had the irresistible urge to cup his hands and drink it in. He was aware, though, that doing so would be an act of desecration—to what, or whom, he did not know—so he stood his hand. Human fingers, with their fine creases and soft sour whiff and uncontested expertise at poking into crannies where putrefaction thrives, must never touch anything as unpolluted as this.

So Jack took a step back, picked a particularly moldy rock near a tree stump, and lobbed it into the pond.

A bright light bloomed from the center of the basin, and for an instant everything was white—shapeless, solid, impenetrable white, the kind that masticates green-grey boulders and spits out sand. He could feel his hands waving frantically, his feet stomping, he could still make out the soft roar of the waterfall, yet he could not see them, nor anything, for that matter.

"So…" a female voice said, smooth as the velveteen wings of a butterfly. "You have decided to make an offering."

Panic bound Jack's tongue to the roof of his mouth. All he could think of was that he was blind, he was blind, he was blind.

"Stop doing that silly dance, you oaf," the voice said again, with a touch of unmasked irritation this time. "I'm talking to you."

"I'm blind, I'm blind!" cried Jack. "I can't see anything!"

"What do you mean you're bli—oh. Oh. Sorry."

The white wall dissolved in patches, in circles and blurred triangles; for a fleeting moment, it seemed as if Jack had a swath of moth-eaten fabric hanging in front of his face, flapping, swelling in a serpentine dance. His vision cleared.

In front of him was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, next to his former landlady and that pin-up girl in the poster tacked to the wall of his old apartment. His eyes, without permission, strayed to her hair—the strands were messily, artfully gathered into two round buns, from one of which dangled a long braid over one shoulder, but the thing that fascinated him the most was the color: green, like jade, like evergreen leaves, like moss clinging to the latrine whenever he forgot to scrub it every three months.

The woman's eyes narrowed. Below the fold of the eyelids clung dark lashes, thick and lengthy, curving upward and almost touching the ridge over her eyes; above them, like a pair of archangels poised for battle, arched meticulously shaped eyebrows, tapering gently at the outer tips. The manner in which she held herself suggested a wry playfulness throughout, like that of a cat's—particularly a cat about to eat a tasty mouse, baring its curving canines, rearing to rip at the rodent's belly and feast on its entrails, to revel in the metallic tang of blood and guts and tearing flesh—

"All right, that's enough," the woman growled. "Your inner monologue needs work. Badly."

"Sorry." Jack rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. He cast his eyes around to distract him from his uneasiness, and by chance noticed something cylindrical clutched in the woman's fist. She saw him staring at it.

"My flashlight," the woman said by way of explanation, waving it around, "for special effects. Sometimes it blinds people, though. Whites out the whole screen. Mortals." She clucked her tongue in consternation. "Anyway, you made an offering. What do you want?"

Jack was confused; he felt his face scrunching up. "An offering?"

"A stone. You offered me a stone, you cheapskate."

He put one and one together and got three. He could work with three. "Ohhhh. That stone. It wasn't an offering, really, but since you seem to think it is…"

"Cheapskate!" the woman screeched. "I shall not deign to converse with you lowlife unless you present before me an adequate offering, one that befits a goddess such as myself."

"All right, all right. Stay here, I'll find something."

Hurriedly, Jack swept his eyes over the immediate area and spotted a slightly wilting moondrop flower near the hot spring. He yanked it out, roots and all, with a fair clump of soil still clinging to it, and flung it over to the pond.

"That's better," the woman said with a smile. "Now. What do you wish of me, O mortal?"

"Well…" Jack shoved his hands in the pockets of his overalls and shifted his weight on one foot. He had not thrown the stone in as an offering; there was nothing in his mind that he truly desired. He decided to stall for a bit. "Who are you, anyway?"

The woman seemed offended by this. "Who am I? You ask who I am? Foolish, impudent human." The features of her face took on a menacing demeanor—her eyes darkened and her mouth stretched into a terrifying scowl. Storm clouds gathered overhead; chilly gusts blew. Jack's knees wobbled in fear. In a ringing voice she proclaimed: "I am the Harvest Goddess, Guardian of the Mountains, the Watcher of Hearts, the Bringer of Rain, voted Most Likely to Live in a Pond in high school, and three-time winner of Underworld's Next Top Model. You will do well to remember me, human."

"I'm sorry!" said Jack, his arms protectively cradling his head. "I'm sorry, O most benevolent Goddess!"

Everything went back to normal. The Goddess returned to her usual cunning self so seamlessly that Jack was almost convinced that she was two different people—goddesses—switching places when he wasn't looking. "I tire of your ignorance, lowly farmer," she said. "For the third time, what do you want?"

"Um, um… could you show me how to farm?"

"What the—the Harvest Goddess asks you what you want—the Harvest freaking Goddess—and you ask to be taught how to farm?" She drew her palm over her face and tipped her face skyward, her braid falling past the ball of her shoulder down to her back. Even in distress, she was gorgeous. "Fine," she said. "Fine. I won't complain or ask or babble anymore. I'll show you how to farm. Come here."

"Where?"

"Here. Near the pond. I'm gonna show you something."

Jack stood at the very edge of the basin—one push from behind would send him plunging into the water—and leaned forward. "Is this close enough?"

"Yes, that's fine. Now watch."

The Goddess waved a long-fingered hand over the surface of the pond. It shone in an array of vibrant colors, spreading in all directions, bleeding into each other until they all swirled into nothing. A rectangle appeared, blurred at first, then gradually gaining clarity, sharpening, the edges growing more and more distinct.

It was a rectangle, spasming, shaking, engraved with the cryptic words "Congratulations! You are the 999,999th visitor! Click here to claim your prize." Behind the first rectangle emerged many others, all of them overlapping, each more arcane than the last, proclaiming things like, "Beautiful singles in your area dying to meet you" and "Enlarge your—"

The last one he could not read in full because it was overlapped by another rectangle.

The Goddess waved her hand again and the rectangles vanished. "Ads," she said irritably. The surface now smoothed out and showed a man swinging a hoe to till the soil. The image barely registered in Jack's mind before it faded out and morphed into a scene featuring the same man, this time spreading turnip seeds. This went on for a while—the images would change, one after another, like a storybook being read too fast.

"Please tell me you got all that," the Goddess said as the last image—the same man chucking vegetables into the shipping bin—thinned out and disappeared into the water.

Jack started shaking his head, but upon seeing imperceptible marshaling of unspoken venom around the Goddess' eyes, he nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I got it. Got it all. Got it so well I could give it back in pieces, inside little gift boxes wrapped in recycled brown paper—see, I use recycled paper 'cause I care about the environment."

"Riiiiight." The Goddess appeared miffed. "It's really simple, you know. Hoe for tilling, hammer for breaking rocks, axe for branches and tree stumps, sickle for weeds, and watering can for, well, watering."

"Gotcha." Jack tipped his hat to the Goddess and ambled away, hands in his pockets, whistling along with the spring background theme. The Goddess shook her head and said, "I knew I should've tried for Mount Olympus."

Jack cracked his knuckles upon reaching the farm, mentally reciting the mnemonic HG had taught him—hoe for tilling, hammer for breaking, axe for branches and all that. He stretched his arms up, to the sides; he bent down and touched his toes, then arched his back. It wouldn't do to sprain a muscle while working. This routine warm-up continued for a few minutes, and finally, with a big flourish, he whipped out the hammer from his rucksack. "All right. Let's do this," he said.

Just then, a bell sounded, a resonance that dived deeper into the coils of living ears, whispering and shouting at the same time, barring the windows of village houses and locking the doors behind it. Nighttime had arrived.

It was deathly quiet all of a sudden. All that Jack could hear was the distant, occasional, and slightly ominous hooting of an owl, and the sparse chirping of crickets. The hair at the back of his neck prickled. "On second thought," he said, walking towards the house, "tomorrow seems a good day to start."

* * *

_a/n:_

_Please don't ask me what this is. I have no idea, myself. All I know is that it's some sort of parody, and that it has absolutely no plot._


	2. Mine for the Craft

The air inside the blacksmith's shop had the texture of damp wool, stiff and odorous, wispy at the corners, humid with the pong of molten metal: it settled into your lower stomach instead of the lungs, stoppering the nose, churning the blood. From the furnace wafted wave after wave of heat, growing progressively more stifling, until Jack could almost perceive glowing coals in his mouth. It was a taste of hell on earth.

What's more, it came with a devil of its own. Two, in fact.

"I told you, I need a hunk of copper to upgrade your watering can," Saibara said. His snowy eyebrows were drawn together, the skin around his eyes dark and sagging. He looked old, even older than Barley, yet he was the one who taught Jack that appearances could be deceiving.

"But you're a blacksmith," Jack said. "Shouldn't you have, I don't know, a steady supply of ores or something?"

"Stop whining. You're not a child anymore."

"I'm not whining!" Jack whined. Clearing his throat, he added, "But that's beside the point. You really should have a decent stock of ores, you know."

"I don't. You have to mine the ores yourself."

"That's a stupid arrangement."

Saibara's eyes flashed. He straightened in his seat and lifted his chin, which didn't make much of a difference in aesthetics; he still appeared too short from behind the counter. He didn't know this, of course. "Who's the blacksmith here?" he said. The tone of his voice would have frightened even the mightiest of cowardly men, and Jack, who was never considered mighty even by cowardly standards, suddenly found himself in need of fresh undergarments.

"You are," Jack whimpered.

"Who?"

"You are."

"Speak up, boy! I can't hear you. Who?"

"You are! You are! Yes, you are! Yes, yes you are!" Jack's voice unintentionally took on a wheedling manner. "Of course you are! Who's the good blacksmith?"

The old man seemed pleased, but made a good show of looking gruff. "I am," he said.

"Who? Who's the good blacksmith?"

Now Saibara's mouth twitched into a self-satisfied smile. Perhaps he was thinking of all the tools he had forged, all the villagers he had helped, all the glasses of sake he had downed at the inn at Doug's expense. If he had a tail, he would have wagged it. "I am," he said again. "Yes, I am."

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, splashing around inside his well of memories, the farmer awkwardly standing on the other side of the counter all but forgotten. "I am…"

Jack glanced Gray, who was hammering away near the forge. Gray gave Jack a shrug which might have meant either "He does that a lot" or "I don't know and I don't care" or "Damn, my shoulders are getting stiff." The farmer, unsure what to do, twiddled his fingers behind his back and counted in his head. If, by the time he got to twenty, the blacksmith was still daydreaming, he would turn on his heel and walk out the door and try again tomorrow. Soon he reached forty, and Saibara was still unresponsive. He decided that he would count again, and if he reached twenty and Saibara was still out, he really was going to leave.

Saibara snapped out of his daydreams at seventy-eight and glared at Jack. "I won't upgrade your tools unless you bring me the ore I need."

Jack, taken by surprise, gave a very shrill yelp which made Gray look up and hit his fingers with his hammer. Gray yelled in pain, crying out, "My hand, my hand, damn it!" Neither Saibara nor Jack paid much attention.

Jack coughed into his fist and said, "If I give you the ore, you'd work on my tools for free?"

"What gave you that idea?" Saibara said. "I need to make a living, kid."

"So I have to supply the ores, and—"

"Damn it, damn you all—"

"—I have to pay for the service, too?"

"That's the way."

"I'll be back tomorrow," said Jack, tugging on his neckerchief. "And I'll—"

"Where's the first aid kit? The stupid farmer had to yell when I had the hammer. Why couldn't you have done it when I was fanning the coals?"

"—um, I'll be sure to bring the ore. But I have to stop by the mayor's house first."

"Close the door on your way out," Saibara called after him.

* * *

**Farming for Dummies**

_Mine for the Craft_

* * *

Harris was a practical man. His shoes were polished but not overly so, his hair was cropped close to his skull, and his bedcovers were government standard issue, white, with the words "Hamilton for Senator" printed at the hem. He also liked excitement in small doses, which the town lacked; crime rate in these parts was an all-time low, the most gruesome violation in the past ten years being a single golden lumber displayed out in a field. The culprit had been apprehended and punished severely: he had been forced to eat Karen's cooking for a week.

The man hadn't died of food poisoning, but he did attempt to drown himself in the sea fourteen times before realizing he could actually swim.

Presently someone knocked on the door and interrupted Harris's flashback. Before he could say "come in," as was the custom, the person let himself in: it was that new farmer, Jack.

"'Morning, chief," said Jack, doffing his hat in greeting.

"Good morning."

"I'm here to report something."

This gave Harris a pause, as the villagers rarely had anything to report, aside from the occasional sightings of little men in colorful pointed hats. These claims were often chalked up to too much consumption of wild grasses. "I'm listening," said Harris. He took his notepad out of his trouser pocket and uncapped a pen.

Jack grinned, one cheek higher than the other, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. "I saw a monster in the lake." He leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles. "Ugly thing."

Harris began scribbling something, then hesitated. A lake monster? It sounded like a clichéd farming game plot, and it was too easy to doubt. "A monster, huh?" A trickle of skepticism leaked into his voice. "What did it look like?"

Jack put a hand on his chin and stroked it. "Hmm, lemme see… it was green, it lived in the lake, and it looked like a monster."

"What do monsters look like?"

The farmer shrugged. "Monster-y, I guess. Monstrous. Monsterrific."

"That's not even a word," said Harris, nibbling on one end of his pen. "In any case, did you do anything to summon it? This is the first time I've ever heard of anything of the sort residing in the lake."

"I was throwing my cucumbers into the lake, and it popped out, just like that, but the special effects were a bit dramatic. It didn't even say anything before diving back down. How rude, right? I mean, how difficult could it be to say _Hello there, random person, nice to_—"

"Wait a sec," said Harris, raising his pen. "Why were you throwing your cucumbers in the lake?"

"I ran out of tomatoes," Jack replied without missing a beat.

"O-kaaaaay. _Why_ would you throw tomatoes in the lake?"

At this the farmer frowned, confused, like a dog chasing its tail only to realize that it was actually a cat all along. "Why not?" he said.

The cogs in Harris's brain were having difficulties in turning. He frowned, mirroring Jack's expression. "All right, let's leave it for now. I'll investigate this monster right away. Thanks for taking the time to tell me."

"No problem, chief." He turned away and made for the door.

"Jack."

Jack paused with the door halfway open and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"If you ever say monsterrific again, I'll put you on community service for a month. Understood?"

A lopsided grin met his threat. "Got it, chief."

* * *

_a/n:_

_I... I don't know. *hides under the bed*_


End file.
